Tag Archives: Thai

A Thai pro-democracy activist said on Sunday she had fled Thailand after learning she would be prosecuted for defaming the monarchy for sharing on Facebook a 2016 BBC article deemed offensive to Thailand’s king. Chanoknan Ruamsap said in a post on her Facebook account on Sunday that she received a summons earlier this month to hear a royal insult charge under Article 112 for posting a profile of the king from the BBC’s Thai-language service, which some deemed offensive. Reuters could not immediately reach the Thai authorities or the BBC for comment.

Thai police have arrested an alleged kingpin in Asia’s illegal trade in endangered species, dealing a blow to a family-run syndicate that smuggles elephant ivory, rhino horn and tiger parts to Chinese and Vietnamese dealers. Boonchai Bach, 40, a Vietnamese national with Thai citizenship, was arrested on Friday evening over the smuggling of 14 rhino horns worth around $ 1 million from Africa to Thailand.

BANGKOK (AP) — Two Americans who maintained a social media account called "Traveling Butts" have been arrested in Thailand after posting a photo of themselves at a famous Buddhist temple with their rear ends exposed, police said Wednesday.

A year of official mourning for Thailand’s late King Bhumibol Adulyadej was to end Sunday after a lavish five-day funeral full of pageantry and religious ritual. Bhumibol, a beloved monarch who died last October aged 88, was cremated on Thursday after a day charged with emotion that brought the nation to a standstill. At his death he was the world’s longest-serving monarch, spanning seven decades of Thailand’s turbulent modern history to become its leading symbol of unity.

BANGKOK (AP) — The cremated remains of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej were transferred Friday to spiritually significant locations for Buddhist rites that will prepare them to be enshrined on the final day of an elaborate funeral that has transfixed the nation.

BANGKOK (AP) — Tens of thousands of mourners have been rushing to Bangkok's Grand Palace to pay their respects to the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, as a period of nearly a year for his body to lie in state ends ahead of his cremation on Oct. 26.

Thailand’s top court will deliver a verdict Wednesday on whether former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra is guilty of negligence — but the fugitive politician will almost certainly be a no-show, having yet to publicly emerge since she fled the kingdom last month. Yingluck, whose elected government was toppled in a 2014 coup, faces up to a decade in jail for negligence over a rice policy. The Supreme Court ruling was supposed to be read on August 25, but the 50-year-old threw the court a curveball when she failed to show up, stunning thousands of supporters who had gathered outside.

By Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Panarat Thepgumpanat BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand’s defense minister on Monday said he did not know the whereabouts of former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, days after she failed to show up for a verdict in her trial for negligence at which she faced up to 10 years in prison. Yingluck, whose government was ousted in a 2014 coup, fled to Dubai via Singapore, sources in her Puea Thai Party said on the weekend. “We don’t know where Yingluck fled and whether she has asked for asylum anywhere,” Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, who is also a deputy prime minister, told reporters.